Remember, Remember, the Twelfth of November
by enigma939
Summary: What happens on November 12th, at 10:04 PM, in FOUR different time periods!
1. Chapter 1: November 12th, 1885

**Remember, Remember, the Twelfth of November...**

**A/N: **Since it was November 12th recently...I came up with the idea of a fic in which the characters themselves would ponder the significance of that day, on the day itself, in the four different time periods explored in the series!

So each chapter will be set on November 12th, and around 10:04 PM, in front of the Clock Tower, in whichever time period. The first chapter is set in 1885 and features Doc and Clara...

**Thursday, November 12****th****, 1885**

**10:04 PM**

Doctor Emmett Brown, and his fiancée, Clara Clayton, stood before Hill Valley's latest pride and attraction-the new Clock Tower.

The clock, which had been inaugurated at the Town Festival two months earlier, had finally been installed atop the Courthouse a little less than a fortnight ago. Doc had walked by it several times since then, and on this particular night, he insisted that he and his future wife visit the Clock Tower, at this _particular _time...

Clara hadn't understood Emmett's insistence, until he explained to her, the significance of that date and time; whereupon, she was gripped by a sense of curiosity and eagerly agreed to accompany him. In the last two months, Clara had exhibited considerable eagerness to hear all about his adventures in time...almost, Emmett wondered, as though she were trying to make up for her initial refusal to believe the truth about him. He had told her before, more than once, about the convoluted sequence of events that occurred on November 12th 1955, a momentous day he had experienced _twice_! Though, he supposed he could hardly fault her for not remembering the date...after all, one had to _live _through such events in order to truly appreciate their uniqueness and inherent cosmic significance...

And now as they stood side by side, in silence, by the Clock Tower, Emmett could not but help think of Marty. He thought of Marty often, but standing here, before the Clock Tower, literally flooded his mind with memories of the teenager. He sincerely wished the boy had made it back to 1985 safely. The fact that Marty hadn't returned to pick him had worried him for weeks...he feared that something had happened to Marty, which made him incapable of returning to 1885. However, as time passed by, cold logic gradually replaced his initial fear...after all; it was entirely possible that the problem wasn't so much to do with Marty as it was to do with the Delorean itself. As he recalled, on every previous occasion, Marty had needed his help before making a time jump. _He _had prepared the Delorean and co-ordinated Marty's return to 1985. He had orchestrated events in Lone Pine Mall such that Marty was able to go back to 1955 in the first place. He knew that it was only with the help of his 1955 counterpart that Marty had been able to travel back to 1885. Without his help, it was entirely possible, _probable _even, that Marty would not have been able to travel back to retrieve him. Besides, the Delorean itself had been, frankly, on its last legs. As if the malfunctioning time circuits weren't bad enough, it had also been struck by lightning and forcibly pulled back through time, spent seventy years in storage, been retro-fitted with obviously inferior 1950's components, had its fuel tank and fuel injection manifold damaged, and most recently, been pushed by a locomotive, somewhat crudely, along a railway track...what were the odds that it was even in working condition after its return to 1985?

No, Emmett assured himself that Marty was alive and well. Or at any rate, _would _be alive and well, a hundred years from now.

"It's almost time now", he muttered, staring at his pocket watch and then looking back at the Clock Tower. He vaguely recalled taking a picture before the Clock Tower, with Marty, two months ago...just before Bufford Tannen's unsuccessful attempt on his life.

Then the minute hand moved and the time was 10:04 PM...

"This is when it happened", he said to Clara in an almost mystified tone. "This is where it _will _happen", he corrected himself, "exactly _seventy years _from this very moment".

Clara seemed to have been awed by his tone, for she stared mystified at the Clock Tower herself.

"Marty had been driving the Delorean down that road", Emmett said, indicating the dirt track running past the Clock Tower. In 1885, it was a dirt track, but in Emmett's minds' eye, he saw a tarred road, lined with shops on either side, with a theatre at the end of it. In his minds' eye, he saw a violent thunderstorm, of the kind Hill Valley had never seen before. And he saw the Delorean, little more than a silvery blur with headlights, racing towards the cables...

"I had been on the Clock Tower, fixing the cables", Emmett said, continuing his reminiscence of what was, to him at least, the past. "But I pulled too hard and the cables below had gotten detached. And it was almost time. So I slid down the cable, got down to the street, and connected the cable with the street-level terminal with barely a second to spare".

"Lightining struck the Clock Tower at _precisely _10:04 PM", he said. "_Just _like the flyer from 1985 said it would have. I almost couldn't believe it!" He laughed at the memory, "That was the most accurate weather forecast I'd ever seen!"

"What happened then?" Clara asked. "What did you see when the lightining struck?"

"I saw the electricity literally coursing through the cables. I got a bit of a shock myself", he added sheepishly. "And I the instant the hook attached to the Delorean connected to the cables...not even a split-second later, the Delorean vanished into thin air in a flash of light...and a pair of flare trails leading up to the theatre almost magically appeared on the street!"

And he remembered how he could hardly contain his excitement at seeing his invention, his _future _invention, actually work!

"I'm afraid I began dancing wildly in the streets", he confessed in an embarrassed tone.

"Emmett!" Clara exclaimed. "_You _dancing wildly in the streets! I can hardly believe that!"

"More than one unbelievable thing had happened that night, already", Emmett said. "And when I saw that car from the future disappear, all I could think was that whatever happened to me after this, whatever difficulties and disappointments I'd have to face over the next thirty years, it would _all _be worth inventing that marvellous machine!"

"It must have been difficult...waiting thirty years", Clara said.

"Yes it was. Though it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. There was always work to do...to keep me busy and keep my mind of things. In the 60's I took up a job at the local university...I met some brilliant young minds, even though a few of them thought I was a bit...crazy", he shrugged as though being called 'crazy' was something he was used to and took in his stride. "I was on pretty friendly terms with Marty's family in the meantime...I'd even attended his parent's wedding. And in 1982, Marty started working for me as a sort of lab assistant and we gradually grew close. He was a little...different from the way I remembered him. Not just younger, but somehow _cockier_, more confident than the Marty I'd known in 1955. Growing up in a more successful family, and with a more assertive father, had certainly had its effect on the boy."

"That was a good thing, wasn't it?" Clara said, rather than asked.

"Yes, well...", Emmett hesitated, knowing only too well what Marty's brashness and overt cockiness would lead him to in at least one possible future. "Unfortunately it had the effect of making him a little..._too _confident. And careless. You saw the way he challenged Tannen to the duel at the Town Festival? That kind of behaviour could lead him to a lot of trouble in the future..." Mentally, he crossed his fingers and hoped that Marty's experiences with Mad Dog Tannen had taught him a lesson. After all, as he himself had said, the future isn't written...maybe there was still a chance that Marty had reshaped his destiny for the best!

"I'd certainly _love _to meet Marty again", Clara said. "He sounds like such a wonderful person...and a brave one too!"

"I wish I could meet him again too", Emmett said sombrely. "Unfortunately, it seems quiet impossible. If at all it was humanly possible for Marty to return to pick me up...pick _us _up...he would have arrived the very _minute _after he left".

"Well maybe...maybe you can build..._another _time machine", Clara suggested.

Emmett looked at her suddenly, reeling slightly from the impact of her statement. _Another _time machine? In 1885? Somehow, the idea seemed...absurd. Ridiculous even. After all, he had been unable to even repair the _time circuits_ on the Delorean. To build another time machine from scratch in the 19th century seemed...nonsensical to even contemplate!

"I can't Clara...it's impossible!" he said.

"How do you know that? You haven't tried it yet have you?" Clara insisted, putting her hand on his shoulder. ""If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish _anything_"..._your_ words, Emmett!"

Yes, now that he thought of it, her words...or rather, _his _words thrown back at him, _did _make perfect sense...after all, he hadn't really even thought about it; sub-consciously condemning the idea as being impossible. And yet, there had been a time when the mere idea of time travel _itself_ had seemed impossible to him...but he had proved that assumption wrong. If it wasn't impossible in the 20th century...there was at least a one percent chance it wouldn't be impossible in the 19th century either...

"You're right, Clara", he said. And silently he made a decision. If at all it were humanly possible...he _would _return to 1985. He _would _meet Marty again.

And someday perhaps, in the future, they would stand side by side at this very spot, before this very Clock, again, and catch up on old times...


	2. Chapter 2: November 12th, 1955

**Remember, Remember, the Twelfth of November**

**A/N: **Sorry for the massive delay, but I'd had a MAJOR writer's block with this fic and for a while actually contemplated abandoning it!

This chapter is actually the only one which revisits an actual scene from the trilogy. No guesses needed as to which year its set in...

**Saturday, November 12****th****, 1955**

**10:04 PM**

Doctor Emmett Brown was _not _having a normal day. Not even by _his _standards.

Somewhere at the back of his mind, he was conscious of the fact that in another reality, in another _life_, he wouldn't even have _been _here! He would likely have been sitting home quietly, pondering the strange vision that had entered his mind over a week ago, making notes and perhaps taking the first tentative steps towards what would undoubtedly be...the greatest experiment of all time...

But Marty had changed all that. Marty McFly, the teenager from the future, who had come to the door a week ago with a bizarre story, and even more astounding proof. Proof that, in the year 1985, he, Emmett Brown would actually succeed in inventing a time machine! His 'flux capacitor' would enable a futuristic sports car, known as the 'Delorean', to actually travel through time when accelerated to 88 miles per hour! But only with 1.21 gigawatts of electricity...

Which was precisely why he was standing here, on Hill Valley's near-legendary Clock Tower, waiting for a lightining bolt to irrevocably end its seven decades of service to the citizens of Hill Valley..._and _hoping against hope that the electricity from the lightning bolt would be directly channelled into the flux capacitor, sending Marty back to the future...

But there was a hitch in the plan. The industrial strength cable that was lying spread-eagled over the street had been disconnected from its ground-level terminal. And he had literally _seconds _before the lightning struck!

And as he saw the time vehicle in the distance...it headlights approaching like the eyes of a demon...a strange technological monstrosity...he made up his mind...

Taking a deep breath, he gathered up all his courage, and clutched the cable with hands. In one instant, he slid down the cable to the street. Collapsing onto the ground, and ignoring the shock of the impact, he rushed to his feet, untangled the cable from a fallen tree, and connected the cable to the terminal just as the clock struck 10:04 PM.

It was a sight that had _never _been seen in Hill Valley's _entire _hundred year history! A lightning bolt struck the Clock Tower, and the current surged through the cable at the precise instant the hook at the top of the time vehicle connected with it. In an almost imperceptible flash of light, the time machine simply vanished, leaving behind a pair of flare trails leading up to the theatre at the other end of the street...almost as though the car had become a phantom and left them behind.

For a few moments, Emmett stood on the streets, stunned, almost as he had been struck by the lightning bolt _himself _rather than just receiving a minor shock from the cables.

The time vehicle was gone...and Marty in it. Vanished. Disappeared...into the future.

The _future_.

And when the realisation of what had happened, of what he had _made _happen, fully dawned upon him...he felt literally insane with euphoria...

He danced around the streets, chanting incomprehensible sounds, his scientific mind unable to make sense of where he was and the miracle that had just happen. And when reason returned to him, when he regained his sense of perspective, when he came to terms with the fact that thirty years from now, he _would _indeed invent a time machine, which he had now sent back to the future...he felt the emotions surge through his mind with renewed vigour. He felt awe and pride and sheer unadulterated excitement...the kind he had never _ever _known in all his life!

_I did this_, he said to himself. _I _will _do this_.

And he swore to himself that no matter what trials and tribulations lay before him in the next thirty years...he would _not _be frustrated by them. He would instead be grateful...grateful because he knew it would all be worth it in the end! _Any _price would be worth paying to be the proud inventor of this marvellous machine!

So engrossed was he in his thoughts, that he was literally deaf and blind to the world around him. But the feeling of someone pulling him from behind...yanked him back to reality.

"Doc...doc...DOC", came a voice from what, to Emmett, appeared to be a great distance. It was a curiously familiar voice...and one he couldn't quiet place...

He turned around, almost irritated by the voice having interrupted his wallowing in euphoria, and caught a glimpse of the one who had intruded on his impromptu 'celebrations'...

Emmett felt he was going to sick.

"Ahhhhhhh", he yelled, when confronted by the familiar sight of none other than...Marty McFly.

Marty McFly! The kid whom he had just seen disappearing into the _future_!

Marty McFly...who had _no _business being in 1955...who simply didn't _belong _to this moment, this scene...

Had it _all _been a dream! The time vehicle, the lightning bolt, the flare trails...had he been day dreaming on the streets! Or was he asleep at his lab...was it the night _before _November 12th...

Dream or no dream, Emmett was determined to get to the bottom of this...

"NO...it can't be you", he shouted, in what he imagined as a feeble tone but which actually sounded loud and agitated to him. It didn't matter...he felt he was having an out-of-body experience...as though time itself had conquered his body, his life... "I just sent you back to the _future_!"

"I know you did send me back to the future", said Marty. "But I'm back...I'm back _from _the future!"

The statement sounded so absurd to Emmett's scientific mind that he decided at that moment that it was all a dream. And perhaps he needed to sleep again in order to wake up...

Leaving one confused and temporally displaced teenager on the street, surrounded by flare trails, at the end of a long day he had experienced _twice_, to wonder how much worse could things _possibly _get!

Looking up helplessly at the Clock Tower, as though for guidance, all Marty could do was wish, stupidly, foolishly, that this was November 12th 19_85_...

**A/N: **The year of Hill Valley's founding, 1855, was taken from one of the earlier scripts for BTTF2.


End file.
